REAL PEOPLE. REAL SOLUTIONS. REAL POWER.
contact us
130 union street
springfield, ma 01105
p: (413) 739-7233
f: (413) 746-3012
info@a-dp.org
United for Hire
- Opening day of operations: June 1, 2001
- United for Hire is a worker-controlled cooperative business, which seeks to provide living wage employment, on the job training, profit sharing, decision-making, and wealth building opportunities to low income people.
- United for Hire meets the requirements of a minority and women owned business / Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. United is a Section 3 (Fair Housing Act of 1968) Business Concern.
- United for Hire provides landscape maintenance & construction, interior & exterior painting, general maintenance, light construction, and snow removal services to the ADP Community Economy.
- United for Hire is expanding in 2010 to provide weatherization and energy efficiency services. United is state approved WAP subcontractor to the Springfield Partners CAP Agency.
- Primary base of operations is located in the Greater Springfield area.
Organizational Structure:
- Workers are required to be dues paying members of the ADP Worker Center / Casa Obrera.
- Work crews are established by consensus and are based on skill levels, training needs, and leadership skills of members.
- Wages are set based on the cost of each job. Minimum wage is $15.00 - up to prevailing wages.
- Members receive profit sharing at the completion of each job based on hours worked.
- Members engage in democratic decision making and are collectively responsible for recruitment and retention of workers, establishing crews, the direction of the business, writing the employee handbook, determining the cooperative structure, setting wages, and other business decisions.
- Ongoing job training and peer mentoring is provided by United for Hire members and skilled tradesmen from allied organizations and Building Trades Unions.
- United is partnering with the Hampden County Regional Employment Board in the State funded Pathways out of Poverty Grant to provide training for members in weatherization and energy efficiencies.
- United is located in the 130 Union Street building, a community held asset of the ADP which is cooperatively owned by ADP affiliates and houses the office and workshop.
Financing
- United for Hire was initiated by the Alliance to Develop Power through grant support from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development and the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts.
- United for Hire received a start up business loan from United Bank. United for Hire’s expansion to capture the new Green Economy is supported by a strategic collaboration with Berkshire Bank.
- SMART, an ADP affiliate member, provided financing to purchase equipment
Relationship to the Alliance to Develop Power / ADP
- United for Hire is a subsidiary of the ADP, a private, non-profit public charity. As an affiliate, United pays annual dues to ADP and holds a seat on the Board of Directors.
- The mission of the ADP is to organize and empower low-income families in Western Massachusetts in order to build political and economic power, promote cooperative economic development, achieve resident control of affordable housing, and create lasting social and economic change. The way we accomplish this is to create new institutions controlled by low-income people and then use our combined wealth and assets to benefit our communities.
- ULC alleviates poverty and thus serves the charitable objectives of ADP by providing living-wage employment with dignity for poor people, increasing the number and livable-compensation level of jobs for poor and low income people, providing career ladders, as well as empowering workers via decision making, skill enhancement and job training, and job creation.
- ADP affiliate groups consists of 5 tenant owned subsidized housing cooperatives totaling 1,400 units of affordable housing; 4 tenant associations; ADP Youth; 1 ethnic association; United for Hire; 130 Union, a cooperatively owned community asset; and the ADP Worker Center / Casa Obrera, representing low wage and immigrant workers.
- Members of United are identified and recruited from ADP leaders and must be dues paying members of the ADP Worker Center / Casa Obrera. Members participate in community improvement campaigns, engage in leadership development, financial services and literacy trainings, workers rights trainings and other benefits.
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